


Only After Disaster

by unDeleterious



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Divorce as Act of Care, F/M, Feminist Themes, Gen, No-Fault Divorce, Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 18:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11675109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unDeleterious/pseuds/unDeleterious
Summary: It's the same when love comes to an end,or the marriage fails and people saythey knew it was a mistake, that everybodysaid it would never work. That she wasold enough to know better. But anythingworth doing is worth doing badly.Falling and Flying, by Jack Gilbert





	Only After Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Summary is from Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert.

It isn’t because it was doomed from the start. For years, the weight Hermione feels was an anchor. Ron's solidity was comforting and reassuring. Ron was awed by Hermione’s drive, thrilled for her success and giddy that he was as much a part of her life as he was. But now, Hermione feels weighed down, overworked, and unsupported. Ron feels attacked, outdone, and unloved.

It isn’t because of one thing that went wrong, either. They grew apart, in careers and devotions. For years, circumstances gave them the same goals and they learned from each other, and grew in parallel. Nearing forty, they have a history that fades further into the past every day, and two children who are learning that what parents feel for each other is resentment.

Neither of them is putting in the necessary labor. Neither of them is sure how to, or even what the necessary labor is. The tension between them leaves them both helpless, Hermione angry and confused, Ron baffled and belligerent.

—

Hermione is the one who suggests it, and for a second it leaves Ron breathless. It leaves Hermione breathless, too. She's been thinking about it for months, but saying it out loud — saying it to him — is different. Every irritated sigh of the last three years hangs in the still air of their kitchen, while Ron visibly races through what he knows about divorce. It's still unusual in wizarding Britain, although the marriage law reforms of 2007 allowed witches and wizards to dissolve the magical contracts of marriage without backlash on either spouse. He asks her what she means, because he’s always been unsure sometimes, if he’s really following her, even when he thinks he is. She explains.

He says it seems like she’s looked into it. Like she knows what she’s talking about.

She says she has. She tries to. She says she already knew. It was a point of difference between muggle and wizard law. She likes to know things like this.

He thinks about arguing, or not arguing, but trying to present some other possibility, but he doesn’t really think there is one. Now that she’s said it, it looms inevitable and nauseating in the middle future. He doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen now. She told him the basics, but there are so many day to day things to sort out. People to tell. The kids. Rose, off at school, Hugo, at Harry and Ginny’s.

"We don’t have to say anything right now, of course," she says. "We don’t — we don’t have to do anything. But."

"Are you going to be okay?" he asks.

"I’ve thought about it," she responds. "It’s always been a little possible. I didn’t think — I wasn’t thinking about it. When we got married. But when I wrote our vows... 'until death do us part...' I think I already knew that wasn’t the only end."

"Oh." he says. "I meant more, about your career. It’s not common, among wizards."

She stares at him. She had sat down, earlier in the conversation, to explain, and now she’s glad for it, because she feels unsteady. She had forgotten, a little, how considerate he could be, when he wasn’t avoiding her, wasn’t being deliberately obtuse. How much he could think of her concerns. It wouldn’t do anything like save their marriage. It couldn’t, at this point, if he was suddenly perfect. After twelve years she knows that isn't going to happen, but it feels possible for a moment, for the distance between them to close at this table, if they only never fail each other again.

In the same few moments that it took for the feeling to bubble up, it ebbs away. She knows that it’s not going to happen that way. The pause between them stretches uncomfortably long as she reflects that expecting him to change to fit her perfectly again would be as unfair as expecting that she would do the same for him.

"Yes. I thought about that too."

"Oh. ‘Course. Yeah."

—

In the following months, they get paperwork and more paperwork. They tell a few friends, and then a few family members. They explain it to Rose and Hugo, and to Molly and Arthur. They work out division of property, and custody, what they’re going to do without each other.

  
Everything is different. Neither of them has been single since adulthood, run a household alone, bought bedsheets without thinking of another person. They don’t know how they’re supposed to act around each other now, or around their friends. Are they supposed to hate each other? Stay away? It's all very messy for at least a year, and worse when the media finds out about ministerial candidate Granger-Weasley’s upcoming name change.

  
When the chaos dies down, as much as it ever dies down for either of them, it occurs to Hermione that the space left in her life, where her now-ex husband used to be, could be a space for her to grow. Growing now doesn’t have to be toward or away from another person, but up and out on her own. Ron thinks, well, he’s on his own now, but not really on his own. He has his friends, and his family, and business and colleagues, and that isn't really on his own at all.


End file.
